The Midnight Sea (The Fourth Element Book 1) by Kat Ross

Author:Kat Ross [Ross, Kat]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
Published: 2016-05-10T04:00:00+00:00

We sat quietly for a while after that. Ilyas never stirred from his daēva’s side. He still held Tommas’s hand in his own, although it had grown cold. Sometimes it is those who appear the hardest that are the most brittle underneath. I thought, somewhat bitterly, that Ilyas did not care to join us because he had so few glad memories to share, but this wasn’t entirely true. Other than that single slap in the stables, I had never seen him physically abuse his daēva. In fact, if Tommas took an injury, even a minor one, Ilyas would fuss over him like a nursemaid.

I remembered how he would watch from the window of his room as Tommas sparred in the courtyard, and yet when we were all together, he almost never even looked at him. And now I understood what he meant when he said he fought a war inside himself. It was not general sin he was speaking of, but a very specific one.

He sees much of himself in you, Tommas had told me.

Not that Ilyas desired me, as I had so foolishly believed. He recognized my feelings for Darius, because he had the same ones for Tommas.

I thought of this as Darius rinsed and bound my wounds. Then I did the same for him, although his were already scabbing over. I tried to control my reaction when he touched me. I knew what to expect now. But it still burned me, flushing my skin and making my heart skip. Here I sat, surrounded by death, aching all over and one of the few people I loved in the world gone, and Darius could still make me want him. Desperately.

For that’s what it was. I couldn’t pretend otherwise any longer. Against my will, I saw him as he stood that day by the river, the clean lines of his body as he performed the water blessing. The way the early morning sun lit his eyes, making them glow like sapphires. And then I remembered his palm sliding under my tunic. The intense heat coming off him in waves, and most of all, the way I could feel his desire as he touched me.

I could count on one hand the number of times Darius had allowed the leash on himself to slip. That moment on the mountain was one of them.

And I wondered what it would be like with nothing between us at all. Just skin, and his mouth on mine.

I almost laughed, and not from joy. As if I didn’t have enough problems already. We needed to get to Persepolae, and I dreaded giving the King the news we brought.

I was just about to check on Ilyas when a man walked out of the storm.

Straight through the barrier, as if it wasn’t there. He had thick black hair, cropped short, and the shoulders of a bull. A darkly handsome man, with a square jaw and sensuous mouth. He wore a light blue tunic. Beneath the bloodstains, I could just make out a triangle and slash embroidered on the breast.

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